Trayvon Martin's death inspires Palm Sunday march

Members of West Side church call for end to gun violence

April 02, 2012|By Erin Meyer, Chicago Tribune reporter

Community leaders and members of Greater St. John Bible Church march Sunday in protest of gun violence and injustice in the Trayvon Martin case. Taking to the streets of the city’s Austin neighborhood are 25th District police Cmdr. Hector Rodriguez, from left; Cmdr. Barbara West of the 15th District; Willie Williams Jr., father of slain teen Willie Williams III; the Rev. Robin Hood; 5th District state Senate candidate Patricia Van Pelt Watkins; Rep. Camille Lilly, 78th; and 25th Ward Ald. Deborah Graham. (Stacey Wescott, Chicago Tribune)

Hundreds of members of a Chicago church took to the streets Sunday calling for a halt to the gun violence they say has devastated parts of the city and demanding justice in the Trayvon Martin case.

"On the first Palm Sunday, Jesus walked through the streets of Jerusalem. Why not emulate the founder of our church and walk through the streets of Chicago today?" said the Rev. Ira Acree of Greater St. John Bible Church on the city's West Side. "The reason we are here is twofold; it's a call for justice and an appeal for peace."

Marchers poured out of the church after services carrying signs instead of palm fronds and chanting. They walked with a police escort along the residential streets of the Austin neighborhood, joining a multitude of protests across the nation spurred by Martin's death in February after police said he was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla.

The church members also called on Chicago officials and state lawmakers to increase funding for mentoring programs and create 2,000 summer jobs for youth on the West Side.

The shooting death of Martin, 17, has touched off a national debate about race, with many demanding that the man who shot Martin be charged with a crime. For community leaders in Chicago, the tragedy has also become a rallying cry to bring attention to the violence in Chicago.

"It touches everyone," said Virgil Allen, a deacon at the Greater St. John Bible Church. "It could have been my son."

Tre Partee, an eighth-grader at Leavitt Middle School who participates in the church's mentoring program, marched with a little girl clinging to his back. The girl held a sign that read: "Fact: In three school years, 260 children have been brutally murdered."

"It's very important," said Partee, on the first protest march of his life. "It's gangs and people dying. We have to get the drugs off the streets."

Ron Holt, the father of Blair Holt, a 16-year-old student from Julian High School who was shot and killed as an innocent bystander when gang violence erupted on a CTA bus in 2007, joined the march.

"I know I am not the only one here who has lost someone," Holt said, asking people in the crowd who have lost loved ones to gang and gun violence to identify themselves by a show of hands. With hands in the air, congregants looked around at one another and then back at Holt.

"My God. This should not be happening," he said.

Holt, a police officer, started a support group called Purpose Over Pain for people who have lost children to gunfire.

"I am (marching) so people will stop the killing," said Lavaris Kimble, 12, peeking out from beneath his hooded sweatshirt, which has become a symbol Martin's death.